‘Five Years, Four Months’ Co-Director Esteban Hoyos García on Urgency of Remembering Colombia’s Disappeared Ahead of Right-Wing Presidency

When director Juan Miguel Gelacio first began listening to the stories of mothers searching for their disappeared sons in Colombia, he thought it would make an interesting documentary. Then, he believed their accounts would lend themselves beautifully to a short fiction film. As the project evolved, Gelacio onboarded his “Jungle” co-director Esteban Hoyos García, who told his friend that the woeful tales of these women needed to be told through a feature film. The result is “Five Years, Four Months,” the first Colombian film to play in the Crystal Globe Competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. 

The moving drama follows Martha (Jenny Nava), a mother whose son has been lost amidst the Colombian armed conflict. Five years into her desperate search, the mother receives news that no bone match was found in the last exhumation she was a part of. Having exhausted all institutional options, she then travels with Sandra (Carmiña Martinez), a fellow searching mother, towards a village where the dead are rumored to grant the living one favor. 

Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s world premiere at the renowned Czech festival, Hoyos García says the idea for the film came from a real-life story of a river that kept bringing bodies to the shores of a small Colombian town. Unable to find the bodies of their own sons, searching mothers would then “adopt” the dead, helping them be buried and then visiting their graves at the local cemetery. 

“We were interested in this idea of delayed mourning and grief, because when someone dies, you can have a proper mourning and some closure, but these women lived for years — sometimes for decades — waiting for an answer,” he says. “They understood their family members were most likely dead, but there was this uncertainty as to whether they might show up one day, alive. It’s a painful struggle to have a disappeared family member.”

For the story, the directors wanted to pair a mother who had been searching for a few years with one whose search spanned two decades, so audiences could see “the different stages of this intense mourning.” It was also important for the directing duo to have professional actors play Martha and Sandra, as there was “a lot of nuance and complicated emotions to the characters.” 

When it came to the supporting cast, however, García and Gelacio wanted to have some of the real-life mothers they met during the research and making of the project. “We wanted to include these women in the film to give them some visibility not just behind the scenes but also in front of the camera.”

“These incredible women have developed a beautiful sentiment of sorority, mostly because institutions have failed them and organizations have abandoned them,” he adds. “We tried to be respectful and mostly listen to them and give them the space to share their stories. You can feel the pain, but also some relief when they get to share those memories. We had the most beautiful collaborative process.”

Hoyos García emphasizes the importance of continuing to share the stories of these mothers and their missing loved ones, particularly given that right-wing politician Abelardo de la Espriella Otero is set to take over the Colombian presidency in early August. “Remembering these stories is a struggle here in Colombia, where we just elected a right-wing president who is trying to erase this history and forget about what happened in a still very recent period, and to keep fighting the war and killing without thinking about the consequences of the very same attitude 20 years ago.”

When the duo began working on the project, Colombia was under the presidency of Gustavo Petro Urrego, the country’s first-ever left-wing leader. “There was this hope that the film would help keep the memory of what happened alive so it didn’t happen again,” he recalls. 

“Now, there’s this painful feeling that the film is even more urgent because we are going back towards that terrain,” he goes on, adding that incoming President Otero has plans to suspend the landmark 2016 Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP rebel group and to defund initiatives focused on finding the country’s disappeared. 

“There are 120,000 missing people in Colombia,” laments the director. “Do not forget that, during the government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, between 2002 and 2010, more than 7,000 innocent people were killed by the military to make them look like they were guerrilla fighters and to show their deaths as a success for the government. Now, the newly elected president is saying he will bring war back to Colombia and bring back this kind of violent politics that has brought so much pain to so many people.”

Being the first Colombian film to play in Karlovy Vary’s main competitive window feeds into the directors’ mission of amplifying their message internationally. “It’s a privilege for us. It all started last year when we showed the film as a work in progress in San Sebastián, where [Karlovy Vary’s artistic director] Karel Och saw it and was very moved by it,” he adds. “We felt from the beginning there was a connection with Karlovy Vary, so it feels full circle to be there, and we hope the film connects with audiences.”

“Five Years, Four Months” is produced by Selva Producciones in co-production with Redline Enterprises, Chicamocha Films and Andante Producciones. The film was made with the collaboration of Colombian groups of searching mothers, Mafapo, Corocoras del Llano, El Tente and ASOVIG. Patra Spanou handles international sales.